"Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the U.N. envoy to Somalia, tells me: “Somebody is dumping nuclear material here. There is also lead and heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury - you name it.” When I asked Ould-Abdallah what European governments were doing about it, he said with a sigh: “Nothing. There has been no cleanup, no compensation and no prevention.”

At the same time, other European ships have been looting Somalia’s seas of their greatest resource: seafood. We have destroyed our own fish stocks by over-exploitation - and now we have moved on to theirs. More than $300 million worth of tuna, shrimp, lobster and other sea life is being stolen every year by vast trawlers illegally sailing into Somalia’s unprotected seas.

The local fishermen have suddenly lost their livelihoods, and they are starving. Mohammed Hussein, a fisherman in the town of Marka 100km south of Mogadishu, told Reuters: “If nothing is done, there soon won’t be much fish left in our coastal waters.”

This is the context in which the men we are calling “pirates” have emerged. Everyone agrees they were ordinary Somalian fishermen who at first took speedboats to try to dissuade the dumpers and trawlers, or at least wage a “tax” on them. They call themselves the Volunteer Coast Guard of Somalia - and it’s not hard to see why."

Also:

"The independent Somalian news site WardheerNews found 70 per cent "strongly supported the piracy as a form of national defence".

No, this doesn't make hostage-taking justifiable, and yes, some are clearly just gangsters – especially those who have held up World Food Programme supplies. But in a telephone interview, one of the pirate leaders, Sugule Ali: "We don't consider ourselves sea bandits. We consider sea bandits [to be] those who illegally fish and dump in our seas." William Scott would understand.

Did we expect starving Somalians to stand passively on their beaches, paddling in our toxic waste, and watch us snatch their fish to eat in restaurants in London and Paris and Rome? We won't act on those crimes – the only sane solution to this problem – but when some of the fishermen responded by disrupting the transit-corridor for 20 per cent of the world's oil supply, we swiftly send in the gunboats."

"But the older and mother of all piracies in Somalia - illegal foreign fishing piracy - in the Somali seas is ignored, underlining the international community’s misunderstanding and partiality of the underlying interdependent issues involved and the impracticality of the proposed actions to find ways to effectively resolve the piracy threat.

This massive “Global Armada” invasion is carried out on the pretext to protect the busy shipping trade routes of the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean from Somali shipping piracy, which threatens to disrupt these international lifeline sea ways. While there are two equally nasty, criminal, inhuman and exploiting gangs of pirates in Somalia, only one of them is publicized by the western media: the Somali shipping pirates attacking merchant shipping in these sea lanes, where the illegal poachers are also actively operating.

THE ILLEGAL FISHING PIRACY

The other more damaging economically, environmentally and security-wise is the massive illegal foreign fishing piracy that have been poaching and destroying the Somali marine resources for the last 18 years following the collapse of the Somali regime in 1991. With its usual double standards when such matters concern Africa, the “international community” comes out in force to condemn and declare war against the Somali fishermen pirates while discreetly protecting the numerous Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing fleets there from Europe, Arabia and the Far East. "

Wrong. But you seem to have the worldview that 'the American government can do no wrong'.

Going through your post history and mine, I think the extreme point of view is on your end Luther...not mine.

Its not that I think the American government can do no wrong, its that you think it can't, or rarely has done anything right.

There ARE always two sides to every story and in your case it usually consists of a "victim" and how America has created/exploited him. This time its the exploited and justified Pirate.

You would fit into San Fran quite well.

For answers to board issues, read the Suggestion and News forum at the bottom of the main page.

04-28-2009, 10:42 AM

lutherblsstt

Originally Posted by Cosmo Kramer

Going through your post history and mine, I think the extreme point of view is on your end Luther...not mine.

Its not that I think the American government can do no wrong, its that you think it can't, or rarely has done anything right.

There ARE always two sides to every story and in your case it usually consists of a "victim" and how America has created/exploited him. This time its the exploited and justified Pirate.

You would fit into San Fran quite well.

You again mis-characterize (or misunderstand the reason for) the nature of my posts,but after a few exchanges with you I expect no less.

Anyway,a couple quotes:

"To oppose the policies of a government does not mean you are against the country or the people that the government supposedly represents. Such opposition should be called what it really is: democracy, or democratic dissent, or having a critical perspective about what your leaders are doing. Either we have the right to democratic dissent and criticism of these policies or we all lie down and let the leader, the Fuhrer, do what is best, while we follow uncritically, and obey whatever he commands. That's just what the Germans did with Hitler, and look where it got them."

Michael Parenti

To criticize one's country is to do it a service. Criticism, in short, is more than a right; it is an act of patriotism - a higher form of patriotism, I believe, than the familiar rituals and national adulation."

You again mis-characterize (or misunderstand the reason for) the nature of my posts,but after a few exchanges with you I expect no less.

Anyway,a couple quotes:

"To oppose the policies of a government does not mean you are against the country or the people that the government supposedly represents. Such opposition should be called what it really is: democracy, or democratic dissent, or having a critical perspective about what your leaders are doing. Either we have the right to democratic dissent and criticism of these policies or we all lie down and let the leader, the Fuhrer, do what is best, while we follow uncritically, and obey whatever he commands. That's just what the Germans did with Hitler, and look where it got them."

Michael Parenti

To criticize one's country is to do it a service. Criticism, in short, is more than a right; it is an act of patriotism - a higher form of patriotism, I believe, than the familiar rituals and national adulation."

U.S. Senator J. William Fulbright

Where did I state any sort of criticism is wrong?

What I said is that's all you do, especially when it comes to this country.

To be more specific in case you missed it the first time:

"There ARE always two sides to every story and in your case it usually consists of a "victim" and how America has created/exploited him."

That's what you do. If you don't feel you do, so be it. I think you do as do many others.

I am not the only one that shares this view as its been stated numerous times by others. Don't blame me for the image you portray with your posts.

If you view of my posts is the "American government can do no wrong", so be it. I can live with that, even though untrue.

For answers to board issues, read the Suggestion and News forum at the bottom of the main page.

The easiest way to frame the issue is this: why is it when Americans raid ships within a certain distance of their shores it's called the Coast Guard, when Somalis do it it's called piracy?

Piracy is a war-like act committed by a nonstate actor, especially robbery or criminal violence committed at sea, on a river, or sometimes on shore, either from a vessel flying no national flag, or one flying a national flag but without authorization from a national authority.

Where does the US fit in here?

For answers to board issues, read the Suggestion and News forum at the bottom of the main page.

Piracy is a war-like act committed by a nonstate actor, especially robbery or criminal violence committed at sea, on a river, or sometimes on shore, either from a vessel flying no national flag, or one flying a national flag but without authorization from a national authority.

Where does the US fit in here?

In demonstrating that so long as it's government doing the thieving, somehow it's okay.

More to the point, Somalia, in resisting the rest of the world's attempts to force a central government on them, are the closest to proving that while it's ain't perfect, a life without the state is possible. That can't be allowed to continue. And it is perfectly legitimate to ask why actions taken by private individuals are somehow criminal and yet when the state does the same it is perfectly fine and dandy.